Ballmer: Traditional media will disappear within 10 years

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Wednesday that traditional media will disappear within 10 years, replaced by online-only content.

Ballmer

That’s what he told advertising professionals at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France. He said newspaper publishers, for instance, have failed to grasp the opportunities presented by digital media.

“There won’t be newspapers, magazines and TV programs. There won’t be personal, social communications offline and separate. In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won’t cut it in the future,” he said, as reported by The Guardian of London.

His predicted transition has already begun to show, most obviously here at seattlepi.com. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s print edition ceased publishing in March after more than a century of going to press, and we now live on only online.

The stakes are high. Ballmer – named the festival’s media person of the year – said the problem is that most media companies have so far failed to find a viable way to make a profit online.

And, he said, media companies shouldn’t expect to bounce back from the current economic recession. Their revenue levels will stay where they are now – pretty much in the cellar.

“I don’t think we are in a recession, I think we have reset,” Ballmer said. “A recession implies recovery and for planning purposes I don’t think we will. We have reset and won’t rebound and re-grow.”